


The Repair

by AnxiousCoffee (TheHallowedAngel)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Episode Rewrite: s09e23 Do You Believe In Miracles?, Gen, M/M, Rewrite, Spoilers for Episode: s09e23 Do You Believe in Miracles?, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 13:51:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18692815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHallowedAngel/pseuds/AnxiousCoffee
Summary: There was a myth, just whispers really, that after an angel dies their grace lingers in the air. And that myth goes on to say that, should another angel have the will enough to risk it all, their grace may be put back and that angel may be reborn. Cas had always been a skeptic, but he still had to try.





	The Repair

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just a self indulgent what-if-Gadreel-lived-fic, l just get really sad to think that no one truly mourned him.

Gadreel had always wondered what it would feel like to die. Ever since his mistake, _the very first mistake_ , it was one of the very few things he had thought about constantly. He thought about how he had come to be so disgraced, the deception that had him fall from the very top all the way to the jails of heaven. He thought about the possibility that he could ever make up for this. And he thought about death, mostly why they hadn't just killed him outright, but also how it would feel.

But then heaven fell and he was thrown from that cell just as every other angel was thrown from their home, and he stumbled upon those brothers and he saw a way to at least redeem himself to his own mind. He had realised, somewhere between being put behind those bars and falling to the earth, that he could never right the wrongs he caused, not in the eyes of the other angels, but he could at least make an effort so that he would not hate himself for all of eternity.

But he was easy to manipulate, Metatron saw this and he used him, twisted his guilt and his pride and his shattered sense of belonging, and he made him into the perfect puppet. Once again Gadreel hit rock bottom, working for a man who saw him as nothing more than a pawn to get the to top, and those brothers he had sworn to himself he would help? They were losing the fight. He had to do something and something he did, turning from the hands that cared not but provided an outcome and serving those that may not have anything to offer but would hold him up should he no longer be able to stand.

While in his cell he had heard the stories of the Winchesters and the stories of Castiel, the angel who shed his feathers and grew emotions, and he supposed that somehow he had come to admire him, and to admire them. The three of them weren't bound by rules carved into a stone, they had all made countless mistakes and been forgiven each time, forgiven for things far more heinous than what he did.

And when he and Castiel were trapped in those cells again, those same, suffocating walls he had come to know all to intimately, he had realised that perhaps he could make up for it all, everything, after all. His hands didn't shake as he carved up his own chest- no, as he carved up the chest of a man who's name he didn't even know, who's name he never asked for. But all the same, they did not shake, and his voice did not waver as he spoke his last, and for the first time in thousands of years his thoughts were clear.

He never thought it would feel like this.

It hurt, at first, it hurt so much he was sure it would never stop hurting, but then it just stopped. It was like this fire had caught in his chest and burnt through his veins, scorching everything there was inside of him and then some. It tore and ripped and broke apart his bones, it soured his blood and turned his stomach over and over and over and over until suddenly- it stopped. And it was just cold, like he had fallen through the ice of a lake that had been frozen over for as long as he had spent counting away his days and he was just suspended there, lifeless and breathless and every other kind of less he could ever be. It was almost comforting, really.

You never realise just how much living boils you up inside, how much blinking and breathing and clawing to get through another day just leaves you exhausted. he was so painfully aware of that now, though, and the creeping feeling of ice against his skin was so welcome that he felt no need to fight. He had this insane idea that if he did fight then maybe he would have been able to stay alive, but he also didn't care to try.

He didn't even know if he had eyes, in this state between alive and dead that he seemed to be trapped in, but in theory he closed them, and while having been completely unaware of how bright it was, it was so much better now it was so much darker and he was so much further away from life.

And he didn't know how long that lasted for, it could have been seconds or years really, time wasn't even important anymore, but suddenly he was getting pulled back. Back to the life he had only just escaped from, back to his shame and guilt and sorrow and all those thoughts that haunted him at all times. Back to that body that he stole without even asking a name. Back to those boys, who without him and his betrayal would surely be much better off, dead maybe but better off all the same.

The pain of being sewn back into your body, a borrowed body really, was so much worse than when you're ripped from it. It was this white hot spread of aching and trembling and cramping over everything, all of himself was getting crammed into something that suddenly felt far to small to hold everything, and he was so very aware of everything again. This was so cruel, he was free. He had gotten away.

Why couldn't he just be free?


End file.
